Intensive Business Enlgish Course | Learn English with UIC London

ABOUT THE COURSE
what will i learn?
what level am i?
why uic?

Max students per class	14
Hours per week	30 hours per week (30 x 60 minutes)
Start dates	Start any Monday (the school is closed for 2 weeks over Christmas and courses start on Tuesdays if the Monday is a public holdiay)
Levels	Intermediate to Advanced levels. Advanced = CAE/ielts 6.0. If your level is higher than this please check with us before you book.
Class times	This class is a combination of Business Standard in the afternoons (held from 12.40 - 17.00) and General English standard in the morning (from 09.00 - 12.20), Monday-Friday

The Business English Intensive course is for students who want to rapidly improve their ability in Business English along with everyday English. It is a combination of two other courses - General English Standard and Business English.

The Business English course follows a specialised syllabus and the General English course in the morning also follows the normal General English syllabus. You will be placed in a class at the right level for you. The General courses focus on speaking, listening, reading and writing skills, together with grammar and pronunciation. The main emphasis of the classes is on practical communication to develop fluency and confidence.

The class teachers follow 2 separate sylabusses, one in the morning and one in the afternoon but will use additional materials to practise grammar, vocabulary, conversation, and pronunciation. The classes are based around a course book and you will use different books in the morning and the afternoon to minimise any overlap. The 2 different teachers liaise closely as well to make sure that the two parts of the course are integrated properly.

We are also the only school in the world ever to win both the Star Award (voted on by travel agents world wide) and the British Council Award for Innovation in language teaching.

This course is a combination of Business Enlgish Standard and General Enlgish Standard. The couse will give a balance of general skills and more specific Business Enlgish skills and help you achieve a lot in a short space of time.

The Business English classes are for students at an intermediate level and above, who would like to develop their use of English in a business environment. As English is the language of international communication, the Business English classes aim to introduce the students to a wide range of appropriate terminology and functional language so that they can operate confidently in an office environment. By working with authentic tasks and role-play situations, the students will develop their business skills to inclulde telephoning, negotiating, selling, interpreting financial documents, writing business correspondence and giving presentations.

Areas covered during the Business Enlgish part of the course (in the afternoons) will include:

Grammar

Review
Revise

Vocabulary

Skills

Tenses is/are to be (formal arrangements) about to / on the point of / be due to
Past tenses: unfulfilled past was going to / was thinking of / was about to / was to have
Inversions: never/rarely/seldom/scarcely/no sooner had/only/not until/little does, so/such
Emphatic words / expressions
modals eg should/ought to
Conditionals
Unreal tenses and subjunctives
Passives
Ellipsis and substitution
Homophones
Loan words
Idiomatic expressions
Proverbs
Euphemisms

All basic tenses
Relative clauses
Comparatives
Prepositions
Phrasal verbs
make/do
Infinitive + ing
linking words eg accordingly, in contrast, on the contrary
verb + preposition collocations (especially business related)
Pronunciation

Newspaper / journal headlines
USA/UK differences
Cliches
Marketing / Sales
Finance / Banking
Human resources
information technology
Law / legal
Office / Admin
Topic related vocabulary eg from articles / newspapers / business journals

Body language
Use of register

Writing: Information requests; action requests; information presentation; initiating a course of action; persuasion techniques; expressing dissatisfaction; putting forward proposals; controlled note-taking; presentations; correspondence

Reading: proof reading; structure (omission and deletion); spelling (business lexis); amending, deleting and adding informaiton to texts; adding paragraph headings

Listening: following instructions; questionnaire feedback; record completion; note taking; specific information; labelling/amending diagrams

Speaking: greetings; telephoning; giving factual information; role play; describing / explaining; expanding on notes; mini presentations; expressing views/opinions/socialising

In the mornings the syllabus will follow General Enlgish at different levels. An example of what you might do in a week is:

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
Lesson 1 09.00 - 10.00	Functional English 1 eg introductions, meeting people, social English	Listening for specific information eg audio books and newspapers	Functional English 2 eg Language of opinions, agreeing and disagreeing, video of debate	Listening for Gist eg radio chat show and topic vocabulary	Weekly review (tests every 2 weeks)
Lesson 2 10.10 - 11.10	Listening for gist and specific information eg authentic radio interview / graded listening material	Conversational language eg interrupting / turntaking leading to fluency practice on topic of reading	Structured debate on the subject of Tuesday's listening material (recycling vocabulary and language)	Listening for gist and specific information eg authentic radio interview / graded listening material	Flexible lesson (used in response to weekly review and needs arising during the week)
Lesson 3 11.20 - 12.20	Topic Voacabulary 1 eg expansion of lexical sets and phrases from listening (Pronunciation Practice of word stress and vowel souonds)	Class Writing eg Class reports of discussion (including language and structure - to be finished for homework)	Error correction from debate Grammar and Pronunciation focus on areas of difficulty identified during speaking	Fluent Speaking, discussions, speaking about different topics and vocabulary about the topics	Song / language game providing consolidation and expansion of functions, grammar and lexical areas

We have classes at many different levels from Elementary through to Advanced. We make sure you are in the right class from the beginning and spend some time on your first day both testing you and talking to you about your aims. Then we can make sure you go to the right class. The level test is grammar, writing and spoken to give us the best idea of your different skills.

You will be given regular tests and tutorials in your class and when the time is right you will move to the next level. There are different ways of measuring progress and predicting where you will be in a certain number of weeks, almost all of our students make faster progress than the national average. Our exam pass rate is above the national average as well. If you would like more information about how much progress you can expect please just ask us.

Learning a language is in many ways just like learning anything, it is best done if you have a teacher who has the experience, skills and resources to help you. At UIC we have the experience to help you achieve your goals - the teachers who work on these courses have expoerience both as teachers and as teacher trainers and can help you continue with your professional development.

UIC is a language school in the centre of London. As well as English we also teach 10 other languages to around 400 people a week. We are accredited by the British Council and ISI (the private school equivalent of OFSTED) and all the languages we teach are inspected. We are also an award winning school, we are the only language school in the world to have won both of the major awards - the STAR Language School in Europe (voted on by travel agents worldwide) and the British Council ELTon award for innovation in English Language Teaching.

So, great location, award winning, accredited and inspected, and many years of successful language learning experience.

UIC is London's Language School